A by-the-numbers plot doesn’t stay the central duo of Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart from hitting all the right notes in this satisfactory-humoured action comedySome films get very lucky with topical gags hitting the ticket more effectively than the writers could have realised. The one about Taylor Swift here got a very grand laugh when I saw it. This is a likable odd-couple action comedy from director and co-writer Rawson Marshall Thurber,who gave us Dodgeball. I suspect he has been influenced by Ivan Reitman’s Twins from 1988, with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. (I even wondered whether he had seen Dominik Moll’s black-comic classic Harry, and Un Ami Qui Vous Veut Du Bien,from 2000.) It starts with that sine qua non of the modern studio comedy: the “anti-nostalgia prelude” sequence set in tall school when the protagonists were hilariously naff. It’s wish fulfilment for comedy writers, of course, and who need to reach back into their schooldays and right wrongs. Kevin Hart is Calvin,a hero of his tall school and the guy most likely to succeed; Dwayne Johnson plays Bob, the fat loser who gets bullied – Calvin stands up for him, or pretty much just out of pity. Twenty years later,with a reunion looming, Calvin is the loser with a boring accountant job, or facing up to the fact that he peaked in tall school. Out of the blue,Bob turns up, now a gym-built giant with a goofy, and amiable air of friendliness,but he has a mysterious job, and he needs a favour from his musty protector. Entertaining, and satisfactory-humoured fun,with Hart putting on his squeaky, helium-voiced panic.
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Source: theguardian.com